The career of Captain America goes sideways during the next twelve months of his life as writer Steve Englehart digs deep into who Steve Rogers is and what makes him tick. Utterly disillusioned after discovering that the President of the United States was at the center of a conspiracy to turn the nation into a fascist dictatorship, the hero abandons his patriotic identity to become a bitter loner called Nomad, the Man Without a Country. This alienates him from his partner, the Falcon; his lover, Sharon Carter; and his colleagues in the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., forcing him to explore and re-evaluate his personal philosophy. The storyline ran for an impressive eight issues before the status quo was restored to mark the character’s 34th anniversary. Englehart closes the Nomad saga with his summation of the overarching theme of the Original Marvel Universe at this point: “There are many risings and advancings of the spirit.”
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Continuing on with... The True History of Captain America!
January–April 1967 – Burdened by the revelations from the recent Secret Empire fiasco, Steve Rogers continues performing routine duties as Captain America, though his heart is no longer in it. He attends Avengers meetings, works out in the team’s training facilities, and occasionally visits with the convalescent Whizzer—a former teammate from World War II whom he barely remembers due to the lingering effects of his post-cryogenic amnesia. Feeling the other Avengers don’t understand what he’s going through, Steve prefers to spend his nights sleeping on a cot in the office in Harlem where Sam Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon, performs his day job as a social worker. He grows increasingly bitter about the way the public turned against him as a result of the Secret Empire’s smear campaign, believing that all the charity work and public service he’s performed over the last four years should have earned him the benefit of the doubt. He wonders if people have just come to take Captain America for granted, devaluing his heroism. On the other hand, old-fashioned hero worship has proven to have a dark side—all the corrupt politicians in league with the Secret Empire won the respect and admiration of a broad swath of the American public. Plus, no longer united by a common enemy like the Nazis, he realizes, Americans have slowly fragmented into squabbling factions, resulting in several competing notions of what the nation stands for. How is he supposed to embody such diverse, often mutually exclusive ideals?
Steve is infuriated when the subversive organization Black Spectre continually gets away with carrying out offensive pranks and outrageous sabotage, such as inciting a race riot at the Statue of Liberty, installing a swastika atop the Washington Monument, draping Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in black shrouds, and carving Adolf Hitler’s face into Mount Rushmore. S.H.I.E.L.D., which assists the government with repairing all the damage, assures Steve that it’s doing all it can to stop Black Spectre.
May 1967 – The situation with Black Spectre goes from bad to worse when they claim to have an atomic bomb hidden somewhere under Manhattan, which they threaten to detonate if the Avengers interfere with their overthrow of the U.S. government. Soon after, the terrorist group invades Washington, D.C. and storms the White House, only to be defeated by Daredevil and the Black Widow. The bomb threat turns out to be a hoax. Steve is relieved, but the incident makes him wonder if Captain America is really even needed anymore.
Steve takes a Sunday stroll through Central Park with his girlfriend, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter, with whom he’s been spending a lot more time lately. Finding that several large animals have been set loose in the zoo, Steve dutifully changes into Captain America to check it out. However, he quickly discovers that the Thing has the situation well in hand. Inviting the couple back to the Baxter Building for coffee, the Thing explains that the commotion was caused by his young charge, Wundarr, a super-powered alien with the body of an adult and the mind of a toddler. Fortunately, the Sub-Mariner’s cousin Namorita and her college roommate have agreed to take responsibility for Wundarr, to the Thing’s great relief. When they arrive at the Fantastic Four’s headquarters, Cap and Sharon are greeted by Mister Fantastic and Medusa, who are performing maintenance on the team’s time machine. An accident causes a young woman named Tarin to materialize from the year 3014. Cap is horrified by Tarin’s tale of how she has spent the last seven years as a slave of the Badoon, vicious aliens who conquered the solar system, wiping out most of the human race in the process. The few humans who survive in slavery remember Captain America, she reveals, as a symbol of liberty and hope. In fact, the leaders of the resistance movement, known as “the Guardians of the Galaxy,” have even named their spaceship after him. Feeling personally invested in Tarin’s plight, as it reminds him of all those who suffered under Nazi domination during World War II, Cap asks to accompany Tarin back to the future. Sharon and the Thing eagerly volunteer as well. Uncertain of the dangers involved, Mister Fantastic offers them 24 hours in the future for a scouting mission. After briefing them on the time machine’s operation, Mister Fantastic sends Cap, Sharon, the Thing, and Tarin to the New York City of the 31st century.
Unfortunately, the three time-travelers are almost immediately captured by an armed patrol of zombie-like police—humans altered by the Badoon so they can neither feel pain nor be knocked unconscious—and a semi-armored creature known as the Monster of Badoon. Tarin manages to escape in the chaos, but the others are dragged before the alien leader, Sovereign Drang, and his sadistic aide, Inquisitor Ebor. Cap is subjected to a painful mind-probe but is soon rescued by the Thing, and with help from Sharon, they fight their way out of the palace and lose themselves in the darkened city streets. After several perilous hours, they finally make contact with the Guardians of the Galaxy when Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Martinex, and Yondu rescue them from a Badoon patrol. Cap is fascinated by Astro’s tale of his own years spent in suspended animation, having left Earth in the late 1980s bound for Alpha Centauri aboard a sleeper ship. When he finally arrived a millennium later, Astro found himself a “man out of time,” much like Cap himself, as technological advances had allowed later human colonists to get there ahead of him. Learning that it was Astro who named the Guardians’ spaceship the Captain America, to honor his boyhood hero, Cap is a bit disheartened to realize that his legend has survived into the 31st century only because of this transplant from his own era. They soon rendezvous with Tarin and the rest of the human resistance movement, whereupon they stage a daring raid on the imperial palace and manage to capture Sovereign Drang despite sustaining heavy losses. Drang remains defiant, pointing out that the Badoon have conquered the entire solar system, so one rebel victory is inconsequential. Cap insists that the human war for independence is just beginning, a sentiment echoed by the Guardians of the Galaxy. A few hours later, the time machine’s glowing platform reappears and Cap, Sharon, and the Thing wish their new allies good luck before returning to the present day. After leaving the Baxter Building, Steve becomes dispirited by the thought that, despite whatever the Avengers may accomplish, humanity will be nearly wiped out by lizard people in a little over a thousand years.
Steve is annoyed when S.H.I.E.L.D. fabricates a story that former U.S. president Morris N. Richardson has died as a result of the health problems that led to his reported resignation last November. Steve knows this is part of the cover-up the agency engineered to prevent the public from learning that the duly-elected President of the United States was behind the Secret Empire’s conspiracy to turn America into a totalitarian dictatorship. Unaware of this, however, the media follows with numerous tributes hailing Richardson as a true American hero and patriot, much to Steve’s disgust. What little remaining faith Steve has in what Captain America represents collapses.
June 1967 – At Avengers Mansion one stormy evening, Thor, Iron Man, the Vision, the Falcon, and Peggy Carter try to talk Cap out of abandoning his costumed identity, but his mind is made up. He has realized that he can no longer embody a nation that allowed its noble ideals to be turned into a cynical sham. The others are stunned by this turn of events and wonder what could possibly have happened to him inside the White House during the battle with the Secret Empire, but Cap maintains that he is not at liberty to discuss it. Sharon is supportive of his decision, so Steve locks his costume and shield away in a vault beneath the mansion and officially resigns from the team. The next morning, Steve gets into an argument with the Falcon, who can’t seem to accept that Captain America is no more. Finally, the Falcon flies off in a huff, so Steve heads over to Sharon’s Park Avenue townhouse. Along the way, he finds that Captain America’s retirement is the talk of the town. Most people seem either saddened or angered by the news, leaving Steve feeling even more isolated than before. Sharon insists that she’s happy with the choice he’s made and is looking forward to spending the day together. Later, however, while strolling past the city jail, they discover the Falcon has been beaten up by two assailants who have fled the scene. Falcon is furious that his partner was not there when he needed him, but Steve insists that he’s just a sympathetic bystander now. As the Falcon storms off, Steve wonders if quitting his superhero life is going to cost him all his friends. Sharon does her best to cheer him up.
The following day, while working out at a gymnasium in Brooklyn, Steve meets a jocular kid named Roscoe Simons, and they discuss Captain America’s mysterious retirement. Roscoe suggests that Cap should make a public appearance to explain why he’s no longer making public appearances, and Steve appreciates his wry sense of humor. He then heads over to Sharon’s townhouse to take her out for a day at the beach. The mood is spoiled, though, when Peggy arrives, distraught over Captain America’s “disappearance.” She is desperate to find him, having convinced herself that the man she loves is in terrible danger. Peggy still does not realize that her sister’s boyfriend Steve is the costumed hero she fell in love with during World War II. Gabe Jones, Peggy’s S.H.I.E.L.D. trainer, has brought her home due to her rapidly deteriorating emotional state and tries to guilt Steve into dealing with the situation before it wrecks Peggy’s new career. Steve is frustrated with the way he and Sharon have handled things since Peggy emerged from her catatonic state last year. As usual, though, Sharon doesn’t want to talk about it.
Several hours later, Steve is heading back to his cot in Sam Wilson’s office when he sees the Falcon blasted out of the sky by a trio of bulky robots that he’s fighting. Horrified, Steve realizes he can’t just walk away when his former partner is in such peril, so he dashes into a sporting goods store and buys a ski mask to disguise himself with. He then confronts two identically dressed villains, both of whom call themselves “Lucifer,” and stops them from killing the unconscious Falcon. During the ensuing battle, Steve maneuvers the robots into destroying each other, at the same time berating himself for leaping into action at the first opportunity despite all his agonized soul-searching. One after the other, the two villains collapse to the ground, convulsing in pain, and Steve realizes that “Lucifer” is actually some kind of entity—possibly demonic—possessing both men, and its malevolent energy has burned out its host bodies. There is nothing Steve can do as the two men die horribly. When he unmasks the two dead men, Steve finds that one is Rafe Michel, an acquaintance of the Falcon’s girlfriend, Leila Taylor, whom he met a couple years ago. The other is Grover Raymond, who served as the second Aries in the international crime cartel Zodiac until being arrested last November following their defeat by the Avengers. When Falcon comes to, he is humiliated and angry that Steve has swooped in to rescue him despite refusing to continue on as his partner. Falcon berates Steve for his ‘white savior’ act and tells him to stay out of his business from now on. Steve is discouraged, feeling that his new life is falling apart all around him.
Over the next couple weeks, Steve gets to know Roscoe Simons better during his daily workouts at the gym in Brooklyn and is buoyed by the kid’s upbeat attitude. He also spends time with Sharon every day, for she often seems to be the one bright spot in his now-mundane life. On the way back to Sharon’s townhouse from the grocery store one afternoon, Steve tells Sharon that it’s time to let Peggy know the truth about their love affair, feeling it’s wrong to allow her to persist with her romantic fantasy from the 1940s. He knows they did it to protect Peggy’s feelings, but now he fears it’s doing more harm than good. Suddenly, the couple is attacked by a costumed supervillain calling himself the Golden Archer, who shoots trick-arrows at them while speaking in a faux-Shakespearean style. Steve is concerned when he realizes the Golden Archer knows he used to be Captain America. Sharon is frustrated that the shadow of Steve’s former life is still hanging over them.
Later, the Golden Archer attacks again while Steve is working out at the gym, and Roscoe is amazed by Steve’s athleticism as he chases the villain off. Steve then returns to Sharon’s townhouse, where he broods on the fire escape until Peggy comes home from her day as a S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee. Keeping to the shadows, Steve calls out to Peggy, calling her by her old code name, “Mademoiselle.” Her joy quickly dissolves into tears as Steve informs her that what they had together during the war just can’t exist in the present day. Peggy runs off sobbing, and feeling like a heel, Steve is about to go after her when the Golden Archer intervenes. Enraged, Steve chases the villain across the rooftops, but the Golden Archer finally dazzles him with a flash-arrow and escapes. Fed up, Steve heads back to Sam Wilson’s office and sets a trap for his foe, propping up a dummy behind a window shade and then concealing himself on a rooftop across the street. Sure enough, the Golden Archer soon appears, whereupon Steve tackles him and quickly beats him into submission. The Golden Archer surrenders and pulls off his disguise, revealing himself to be Captain America’s former teammate Hawkeye. Steve is shocked, but Clint Barton quickly explains that he wanted to convince Steve that giving up being a superhero was a big mistake. Also, Clint is grateful that Steve took him under his wing after he joined the Avengers and helped him become a better man—now he wants to return the favor. Steve appreciates Clint’s good intentions but insists that Captain America is not coming back, despite what everybody seems to think. Clint suggests that Steve create a completely new superhero persona instead, so his skills and abilities won’t go to waste. Disenchanted with his civilian life, Steve admits he’s intrigued by the idea.
July 1967 – Over the next few days, Steve convinces himself that Hawkeye’s idea really has merit—he could return to the life of action and adventure that he loves without being burdened with conflicting ideas about what America symbolizes. However, when he tells Sharon of his decision to become a superhero again, she gets upset and reveals that she supported his decision to retire because she always saw his Captain America identity as an impediment to their relationship. She accepted it then, she explains, because Steve was firmly established in that role when they met—but she doesn’t want to go back to that life of constant danger, hoping instead they could settle down and live like a normal couple. Steve admits he hadn’t thought about it from her perspective but insists that being a superhero is something he was born to do. He suggests they go to Sharon’s parents’ estate in Virginia to devise his new identity and work out his plans, but she refuses, telling him to go by himself if it means that much to him. Stunned, Steve leaves her townhouse and makes his way back to Harlem, wondering why things will never just come together for him.
In the morning, Steve leaves New York and rides his motorcycle down to Virginia, where he is greeted warmly by Harrison Carter and their butler, Smithers. After retiring to his room, Steve sketches out various costume designs, eventually deciding to keep it simple and not too different from what he had before, though he does add a flowing cape for some superhero panache. While making his new black-and-gold costume, he considers a number of possible codenames. Realizing that he has come to feel like “a man without a country,” Steve settles on the name Nomad. Thus, in Washington, D.C. a few nights later, Nomad makes his public debut. Steve realizes he hasn’t felt so free and unfettered since his first missions as Captain America way back in 1941. As luck would have it, he stumbles upon the Serpent Squad—the Cobra, the Eel, Princess Python, and a female Viper—kidnapping a man in front of a movie theater as his wife screams for help. Chasing the villains into the theater, Nomad is distracted for a moment when he realizes the film being shown is a documentary about Captain America. During the ensuing fight, the Eel reveals that his brother, the original Viper, has been killed by the police. It is then that Nomad recognizes the new Viper as none other than Madame Hydra, proving that she did survive their previous encounter. She claims to have taken up the Viper identity in tribute to the slain villain. Though the crooks berate him as an amateur, Nomad fares quite well against his four foes until he trips on his own cape and slams his jaw into the floor. While the hero is stunned, the Serpent Squad escapes with their captive. Furious with himself, Nomad rips off his cape and throws it away. When the police arrive moments later, Nomad learns that the kidnapping victim is Hugh Jones, the C.E.O. of the Roxxon oil conglomerate. He vows to track down the Serpent Squad and free their captive.
Frustrated by his lack of leads, Nomad stops by the Lincoln Memorial in search of inspiration. There, he runs into the Sub-Mariner, who is hunting down his nemesis, Warlord Krang. Namor shows little interest in Captain America’s new identity as Nomad, but when he mentions that Krang is in league with the Serpent Squad, Nomad suggests they combine forces. From a nearby car radio they hear Krang announcing that the Serpent Squad is responsible for kidnapping the head of Roxxon Oil. Hugh Jones then reads a prepared statement, but there’s something odd about his voice, which Namor recognizes as resulting from the influence of the Serpent Crown, an ancient mystical artifact from the sunken civilization of Lemuria. Nomad then phones S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and speaks with Nick Fury, who recognizes his voice. Fury confirms that Roxxon has an oil-drilling platform near the coordinates mentioned by Nomad, so the two heroes board Namor’s submarine, moored in the Potomac River, and set off at once for Lemuria at high speed. A few hours later, after passing through the Panama Canal, the submarine arrives at the Roxxon oil rig in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where it is still daylight. Wanting to prove himself in battle, Nomad asks the Sub-Mariner to hang back in the sub while he confronts the villains. Namor agrees, so Nomad climbs aboard the rig, where he finds Jones wearing the Serpent Crown and looking like he’s in a trance. The Cobra, the Eel, Princess Python, Viper, and Krang are present as well, so Nomad, seeing a strange disturbance in the water near the platform, attacks them without delay. Their brawl is interrupted by the arrival of Roxxon helicopters that strafe the platform with machine guns. Krang snatches the Serpent Crown off Jones’s head and tosses it to Viper. She and the Cobra escape in their aircraft while the others are pinned down by the shooting. Jones quickly comes out of his trance and informs his security forces that he’s shut off the pumps to prevent Lemuria from rising, though Nomad’s not really sure what he’s talking about. Nomad loses his temper when the Roxxon security guards treat him with contempt, punching one guy in the face. Though the Eel and Princess Python are taken into custody, Krang leaps into the ocean and escapes. Thus, Nomad hurries back to the submarine so he and Namor can pursue the fugitive Atlantean warlord.
When they lose Krang’s trail in the western Pacific, the Sub-Mariner agrees to drop Nomad off in Saigon, the capital city of South Vietnam, where they’ve learned the Avengers are on a mission. Nomad soon catches up with Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Vision, and Mantis and tells them what he’s been up to. They are glad to see he’s back in action, though they find his new costume hard to get used to. They inform him of the Swordsman’s death in Peking, China, late last month at the hands of Kang the Conqueror, and of how his burial was disrupted by the Radioactive Man, the Titanium Man, and the Crimson Dynamo. Nomad is surprised to hear that the Swordsman sacrificed his life to save Mantis, given his criminal past. When Hawkeye checks in with the team’s butler, Edwin Jarvis, he reports that the fugitive Serpent Squad members have been spotted in Los Angeles. With that news, Nomad bounds off, promising to keep the Avengers apprised of his activities. When he arrives in California the next day, however, Nomad finds that his quarry has already left town. He soon tracks them north to Seattle, Washington.
Nomad finds Viper and the Cobra holed up inside an abandoned house in Seattle, firing machine guns at the police who’ve established a cordon around the property. He introduces himself to the police as the superhero who captured the rest of the Serpent Squad out in the Pacific Ocean, but not knowing anything about him, they stop him from charging the building. One cop hits Nomad in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle, knocking him out cold. When he comes to, Nomad finds himself handcuffed to the front wheel of a police cruiser. To his horror, the police have advanced on the building and are getting mowed down by the villains’ gunfire. He uses his super-strength to tear the wheel off its axle and break out of the handcuffs, then storms into the house. He finds the Cobra cowering in a corner, convinced they’re both going to die, as Viper continues firing at the cops outside. A fire has started in the basement, filling the ground floor with smoke mixed with tear gas. Nomad confronts them, whereupon the Cobra offers token resistance while Viper rants about nihilism in service to the Serpent Crown. When Cobra tries to make a run for it, Viper shoots him in the back, intent on making him a martyr to her cause. Nomad is about to tackle her when he is knocked back by the stream of water from a firehose outside. The fire-damaged building suddenly collapses, burying Viper in rubble, but Nomad is able to grab the Cobra and get him outside to a waiting ambulance. The medics determine that the Cobra’s body armor saved the villain’s life. However, Nomad writes off Viper as dead when a gas main ruptures, obliterating the house in a tremendous explosion. Though a thorough search of the wreckage is made, no trace of the Serpent Crown can be found.
When he finally calls Sharon’s townhouse, Steve learns from Peggy that Sharon has left New York and moved back to their family estate in Virginia. Assuming Sharon has broken off their relationship, Steve is saddened but determines to carry on as Nomad. Having cast himself as a wanderer, he decides not to return to New York in favor of exploring the wide-open spaces of the American west on his motorcycle.
August–November 1967 – For the next four months, Nomad wanders the western United States, fighting crime, helping people out of jams, and enjoying his freedom. However, he is disturbed by the dark mood of the country and the political polarization caused by racial inequality and the ever-escalating Vietnam War. Eventually, he starts making his way across the Midwest, heading inexorably back towards New York City.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Nomad finds himself trapped within a force-field bubble. Try as he might, he is unable to escape. Finally, the force field vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. Nomad then learns that while he was trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army.
A week before Christmas, Nomad arrives in New York and goes looking for the Falcon. He comes across a Harlem costumed criminal called the Gamecock and his two henchmen and gets into a fight with them that ends abruptly when someone on an adjacent rooftop fires a bazooka at them. Before he can pursue either party, Nomad is confronted by Leila Taylor, who watched the fight from a safe distance. She reveals that the Falcon has been missing for three days, ever since he was seen in the company of a junior Captain America. Nomad isn’t sure what she means by that but rushes off, growing more concerned about his former partner’s whereabouts. After a frustrating encounter with street protestors valorizing the Serpent Squad as anti-corporate crusaders and trying to make Viper out to be a martyr, Nomad checks Sam Wilson’s office for clues. There, he runs into Gabe Jones and Peggy Carter and realizes that Peggy must have finished her training by now and become a full-fledged agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. The pair is dismissive toward Nomad, thinking him to be a novice superhero, and assure him that they are already investigating Sam’s disappearance. Perhaps when Nomad has gained more experience, they suggest, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be willing to work with him. Reminded of how the Roxxon security detail treated him, Nomad decides not to argue the point and leaps out the window.
Next, Nomad shakes down the Harlem-based crime boss called Morgan, who admits to having hired the Gamecock to kill the Falcon but insists he has no idea where the hero disappeared to. Sensing Morgan is telling the truth, Nomad leaves, wondering what his next move should be. He comes across an irate crowd outside a recently robbed bank and calms them down by reminding them that their accounts are insured by the FDIC. He then stops at the Gem Theater in Times Square to consult with the super-detective Luke Cage, only to find that the “hero for hire” is out of town. Stumbling upon another crowd of panicky customers at the site of a second bank robbery, Nomad is subjected to a conspiracy-minded rant by a man convinced that the Committee to Regain America’s Principles heroically exposed Captain America as being in league with the Secret Empire. He cites Cap’s abrupt retirement as proof of his assertions. Frustrated by all the unforeseen negative consequences of his actions, Nomad berates himself. Then, he remembers that the Falcon had once mentioned following up on Professor X’s suggestion that his rapport with his pet falcon, Redwing, may mark him as a mutant. Thus, Nomad phones Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and speaks with the Beast, but none of the other X-Men are available. Beast assures Nomad that, if the Falcon is a mutant, he may just need some time alone to come to terms with that fact. It’s taken him a couple of years, he reveals, to deal with his own transformation into his current furry form and to find a measure of self-acceptance. Nomad is heartened by these words, but then Redwing swoops down, squawking at him. Realizing the bird wants him to follow, Nomad sets off across the rooftops again.
A few minutes later, Redwing leads Nomad to the body of a young man dressed as Captain America, hanging upside-down from a chimney. To his horror, he realizes the dead man is Roscoe Simons from the Brooklyn gymnasium where he used to work out, and that this must be whom Leila was referring to earlier. Nearby, Nomad discovers the Falcon, badly beaten and hogtied, dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia. As he is freed, Falcon identifies their attacker as the Red Skull. Nomad is shocked, having thought the villain died in Las Vegas a year and a half ago. The Red Skull is clearly looking for a showdown with Captain America, but Steve is at first determined to maintain his Nomad identity, reasoning that Cap was merely a patriotic fantasy fueled by the onset of World War II. He could represent America while the country was united against external threats like the Axis powers, he feels, but in the five years since he emerged from suspended animation, he’s seen how badly things went awry in his absence, as evidenced by the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the Secret Empire taking over the government. When the people entrusted with America’s future abused that trust, they proved themselves every bit as bad as the Red Skull. But then Steve asks himself how, if he was fully prepared to fight foreign enemies, could he balk at fighting domestic ones, even if they held positions of authority? His view of America was clearly too naïve and simplistic, he suddenly realizes, and his conception of his own role was all wrong—Captain America is not meant to represent the American people or their politics but to fight for the American Dream. And as Roscoe’s gruesome death makes clear, he can’t allow anyone else to wage that war for him. A grim determination comes over Steve, and after getting the Falcon to the hospital, he returns at last to Avengers Mansion, discards his Nomad suit, and gets his Captain America costume and shield out of storage. Donning his familiar red, white, and blue garb, Captain America vows to face all the nation’s enemies, whatever the threat and wherever it may originate.
For the next two weeks, Captain America and the Falcon hunt for the Red Skull. Though their quarry eludes them, the heroes know it’s only a matter of time until the inevitable clash with their ultimate foe.
Notes:
January–April 1967 – Black Spectre’s pranks are detailed in Daredevil #109.
May 1967 – Black Spectre is finally defeated in Daredevil #109–112 and Marvel Two-In-One #3, during which the Avengers remain behind the scenes. Captain America and Sharon Carter then guest-star with the Fantastic Four in Marvel Two-In-One #4–5. For more on President Morris N. Richardson, see OMU: POTUS – Part Three.
June 1967 – Steve Rogers charts a new course for his life in Captain America #176 and following. The “Lucifer” who possesses Rafe Michel and Grover Raymond is not a demon, but an alien—the same alien responsible for crippling Charles Xavier. However, Steve never has the chance to learn of Lucifer’s true nature.
July 1967 – Madame Hydra actually killed the original Viper herself and stole his gear, then told the Serpent Squad that the police were responsible. Nomad catches up with his old teammates in Avengers #131. The aftermath of the battle with the Cobra and the new Viper (and her escape) is revealed in a flashback in Marvel Team-Up #84.
August–November 1967 – Most of Steve Rogers’ career as Nomad remains an Untold Tale of the Original Marvel Universe, as more time elapses between the last two installments of the Nomad saga than is apparent in the story as written.
December 1967 – Various superheroes are seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233. Steve’s taking up the mantle of Captain America again brings us up to Captain America #183.
Jump Back: Captain America – Year Five
Next Issue: Daredevil – Year Six
